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Maps of Toronto's old rail lines?

BlogTO has a factual article on this at: https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/05/toronto-wants-tear-rail-tracks-abandoned-years/ Nobody seems to have explained why the City says they consulted industry while 'industry' says nobody talked to them but this really is a case of "Use it or lose it" and it appears that the City's plan will retain the remnants of the rail ROW so, in the very unlikely event (in my opinion) that it might ever be worth re-opening again it could be, as long as Metrolinx allows a connection to the mainline.
 
DSC said:
BlogTO has a factual article on this at: https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/05/toronto-wants-tear-rail-tracks-abandoned-years/ Nobody seems to have explained why the City says they consulted industry while 'industry' says nobody talked to them but this really is a case of "Use it or lose it" and it appears that the City's plan will retain the remnants of the rail ROW so, in the very unlikely event (in my opinion) that it might ever be worth re-opening again it could be, as long as Metrolinx allows a connection to the mainline.
Click to expand...

I wonder what they would do w/the ROW where it runs between private properties currently, if retained would they abandon it and just fence it off; or would the put trail on it?

I'm thinking in particular of the segment behind the Farm Boy/Canadian Tire plaza.
 
Northern Light said:
I wonder what they would do w/the ROW where it runs between private properties currently, if retained would they abandon it and just fence it off; or would the put trail on it?

I'm thinking in particular of the segment behind the Farm Boy/Canadian Tire plaza.
Click to expand...
I heard talk of a 'wildlife corridor' so had assumed (correctly??) that that section, at least, it will be an unfenced trail. The red line below.

Of course, it may not be great to encourage wildlife to try to cross Lake Shore but ...
Rail.jpg
 
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DSC said:
I heard talk of a 'wildlife corridor' so had assumed (correctly??) that that section, at least, it will be an unfenced trail. The red line below.

Of course, it may not be great to encourage wildlife to try to cross Lake Shore but ...
View attachment 401066
Click to expand...

I has assumed they were thinking of the Unwin section as a Wildlife corridor; that little segment seems like nowhere to nowhere for Wildlife, though the Leslie side is close-ish to the spit.
 
Northern Light said:
I has assumed they were thinking of the Unwin section as a Wildlife corridor; that little segment seems like nowhere to nowhere for Wildlife, though the Leslie side is close-ish to the spit.
Click to expand...
The Unwin corridor really runs immediately between Unwin and the adjacent (existing) parkland so I am not sure that it will create much more of a corridor but the more corridor the better I say!

The red line is the section between lakeshore and Commissioners/Leslie. The blue box is the Canada Post plant that is now blocking the line and the green line is where it runs from the new Turning basin park and then west through the Hearne and eventually across Unwin to the junction of Unwin & Cherry.
Rail2.jpg
 
DSC said:
From an earlier post in this thread: The tracks still cross Lake Shore just east of the Don River - or did until a few months ago. God knows what's going on there now.

View attachment 411084
Click to expand...

Hmmm.

Thanks.

Looks like it came out via the Don Roadway.

Aha, there it is in Streetview from 2007:

1656797638528.png

Above: Looking south along the Don Road way from Villiers

Below: Looking north along the Don Roadway from Commissioners:

1656797728990.png


Looking south from Commissioners:

1656797780155.png
 
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Is it faster to put a container on a train to get to Toronto or for a boat to get to Toronto?

But there is a huge backlog to get to port to unload. Would building a port to unload containers alleviate this pain point? But you would need to transfer from ocean vessels to lake vessels somewhere.
 
Bordercollie said:
Is it faster to put a container on a train to get to Toronto or for a boat to get to Toronto?

But there is a huge backlog to get to port to unload. Would building a port to unload containers alleviate this pain point? But you would need to transfer from ocean vessels to lake vessels somewhere.
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I think there are too many variables to come up with a clear answer to that. From where? Assuming a container of consumer goods from China or elsewhere in the Pacific rim, I would think it would be much faster to put it on rail on the west coast. A lot of the large container ships can't get through the Panama Canal so they would have to go the long way 'round to an Atlantic port. Transloading from a big ship to a smaller one to navigate the St. Lawrence would make no sense; if nothing else it adds an addition step in handling. Toronto (GTA) already has rail intermodal terminals but has virtually no port facilities left since it seems it decided it didn't want to do that anymore. I'm not sure there would be any Great Lakes port that has a sizable container terminal since the size of ship that could service it would be comparatively small.
 
lenaitch said:
I think there are too many variables to come up with a clear answer to that. From where? Assuming a container of consumer goods from China or elsewhere in the Pacific rim, I would think it would be much faster to put it on rail on the west coast. A lot of the large container ships can't get through the Panama Canal so they would have to go the long way 'round to an Atlantic port. Transloading from a big ship to a smaller one to navigate the St. Lawrence would make no sense; if nothing else it adds an addition step in handling. Toronto (GTA) already has rail intermodal terminals but has virtually no port facilities left since it seems it decided it didn't want to do that anymore. I'm not sure there would be any Great Lakes port that has a sizable container terminal since the size of ship that could service it would be comparatively small.
Click to expand...
Would a 100 car double stack train carry more containers than a lake freighter?

Quebec city has a deep sea port.

I wonder if they could get the line to Churchill to run at 50mph if running double stack container trains from there to Toronto would make sense? It would be closer than Halifax.
 
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